Dumping Like There’s No Tomorrow

You know the feeling. Despite all you tell yourself, you still feel a deep seated feeling of frustration, anger even… and all that happened was someone said something that went against the grain.

Rationally, you can see that the person lacked an understanding and the ability to express themselves clearly but deep inside, you are burning up with this emotional baggage that defies all that rationality you desire to exude.

Now we can write this off as, “it’s just me, I’m an emotional type of person” or “hell, he (or she) deserved all he (or she) got”

[Don’t you love this world where we want to include everyone but the language doesn’t allow us to do that? Although Males and Females are different, the emotional stuff we go through is practically the same. Each of us decides how we will react and then, let fly in the best possible rendition of our individual makeup!]

So we write off this internal turmoil and let fly… and guess what, so does the other person. It’s like a fireworks show without the view. What happens next? Well usually we go away and find someone who we can discuss (did I say discuss? I meant, spout at) and we “dump” the whole affair (our version of it) on this person.

Let’s look at dumping shall we. Another word used to mean the same thing is venting… both the same and both caused due to the same thing. Someone has disagreed or argued with us and we didn’t say what we wished to say and so we look around for some friendly ear and then we throw all the thoughts, ideas and communication we wished we had said earlier, at this friendly ear!

I’ve heard this also called “Charge”…. We become so charged up with this charge, this electricity, that we have to discharge it somewhere and anywhere will do. As the recipient of someone venting, you can watch them discharge all of this energy just by talking and talking and talking. They run down and slowly but surely they return to normal (not charged up like before)

Now this charge gets missed for one reason and one reason only…. A lack of an acknowledgement. A true acknowledgement lets us know that we have been understood. It is the complete soothing pill… it allows us to know that our communication has been received and understood. It allows the communication to vanish into thin air without us being hung up on any part of it.

In an argument, the acknowledgement part of the communication cycle gets thrown out the window… instead of an acknowledgement we get a talking over each other and there’s why the whole thing gets hung up. Watch what happens… all charged up and somewhere along the line a big need to vent or dump… worse still, big time upset.

You will know all about this… think about great conversations you have had… you will see that there is no hang-up. No charge associated with it. It was light and easy… now think about a conversation that went sour… notice the charge that still exists… if you are honest about it, that charge still sits there, you will feel the uneasiness. It doesn’t seem to go away.

You will remember the time you had someone come up to you to complain about something. I am always suggesting to teachers that when parents come to see them to complain about little Jonny, the worst thing they can do is to try and speak. If they can listen intently and acknowledge with a true understanding, the parent vents away and the charge dissipates. There is no argument. There will be some action required but in the first instance, you have totally handled this communication cycle by listening and acknowledging

Knowing what is happening in a cycle of communication can be a great help. Make sure your communications are complete. Offer the same consideration to the other party. You will be doing them a service as well.

There’s not too much to magic.

You know when it all goes great and you are on a high. You bend down and there’s that four leaf clover and you say to yourself… “Today is my day, its going to be a beauty!” Now did you find the four leaf clover because you decided that it was going to be a great day or did finding the four leaf clover because you to feel you are going to have a great day.

We seem to put faith in once we have found the four leaf clover that our day is going to be great. I am going to suggest that the state of mind you put yourself in, will allow the four leaf clover to be found in the first place.

You don’t have to do anything magical for magic to occur. Magic occurs due to a belief that you are on song. Positive affirmations will begin to create a four leaf clover every day. The world will look exactly as you wish it to look. If you focus on the rubbish, turmoil and down side of life… that’s exactly what you will see, concentrate on the laughter of little children, the flowering plants, the happiness around and suddenly the world takes on a different appearance.

Now we can still acknowledge that the bad stuff is happening. It is, and our society suffers because of it, but if we can build on the positive, help others to see the worth in life and find reasons to laugh, we create a little piece of sanity in this mixed up world. If each one of us does this, then the magic starts to occur.

SWOT

A useful tool in deciphering a present time issue is what is commonly called a SWOT analysis. The more you look at your situation, the more you see flaws in the structure. So how come you see it and nobody else does?

There are some straight forward steps to take

The first is to look at your

• strengths

• weaknesses

• opportunities

• threats

Yes, it is a SWOT analysis. Take any issue you have going at the moment and work out your strengths, weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats. This is real and meaningful for you and it will give you an overall picture of where your situation is at

How many times do you wonder…

Where your support is?

That you seem to be the only person trying?

That your workload is far too great?

That there should be more money?

Why it seems that no one listens?

How much time do you spend at work?

Is this time required or expected?

What else seems to be required or expected?

What are your Options?

1/ Do nothing… Believe it or not over 95% of us will do absolutely nothing at all. We would rather live in the situation we now find ourselves in, rather than take steps to taking control and making changes. It’s a fact that most of us will keep on doing the same thing but expect a different result

2/ Think about making changes but DO nothing. We make plans, set some goals, and decide to make some changes, but within the first month have settled back in to doing the same old things, living the same old life.

3/ Do something and succeed at it. The changes necessary to make a difference in your life are small and with the desire to make these changes firmly in the forefront of your mind, significant life and business changes will result. Just take baby size steps but make sure you take them. Don’t stop, just keep stepping, after a short while, you will be in an entirely different place and all it required was one step and then another…

Have a great week

Cheers… Bill

Bill Gray

Bill is a Business Coach. Working with Individuals, Businesses and Organisations to create better environments and to develop and enhance business ”potential”, into successful business practices.